Fixed-Node, Importance-Sampling Diffusion Monte Carlo for Vibrational Structure with Accurate and Compact Trial States.

We present a new approach to importance sampling in diffusion Monte-Carlo (DMC) simulations of vibrational excited states whereby the trial wave functions for low-energy states are incorporated into the diffusion equations so as to enforce their orthogonality. For the model systems examined here, simple variational wave functions based on the vibrational self-consistent field (VSCF) and the simplest vibrational configuration interaction (VCI) are effective in importance sampling provided that internal coordinates used in the underlying one-particle functions have been variationally optimized. The resulting model yields results comparable in accuracy to the best unguided DMC calculations without requiring an a priori choice of coordinates to specify nodal hyperplanes.

Vibrational self-consistent field theory using optimized curvilinear coordinates.

A vibrational SCF model is presented in which the functions forming the single-mode functions in the product wavefunction are expressed in terms of internal coordinates and the coordinates used for each mode are optimized variationally. This model involves no approximations to the kinetic energy operator and does not require a Taylor-series expansion of the potential. The non-linear optimization of coordinates is found to give much better product wavefunctions than the limited variations considered in most previous applications of SCF methods to vibrational problems. The approach is tested using published potential energy surfaces for water, ammonia, and formaldehyde. Variational flexibility allowed in the current ansätze results in excellent zero-point energies expressed through single-product states and accurate fundamental transition frequencies realized by short configuration-interaction expansions. Fully variational optimization of single-product states for excited vibrational levels also is discussed. The highlighted methodology constitutes an excellent starting point for more sophisticated treatments, as the bulk characteristics of many-mode coupling are accounted for efficiently in terms of compact wavefunctions (as evident from the accurate prediction of transition frequencies).

Blind test of density-functional-based methods on intermolecular interaction energies.

In the past decade, a number of approaches have been developed to fix the failure of (semi)local density-functional theory (DFT) in describing intermolecular interactions. The performance of several such approaches with respect to highly accurate benchmarks is compared here on a set of separation-dependent interaction energies for ten dimers. Since the benchmarks were unknown before the DFT-based results were collected, this comparison constitutes a blind test of these methods.

Can Single-Reference Coupled Cluster Theory Describe Static Correlation?

While restricted single-reference coupled cluster theory truncated to singles and doubles (CCSD) provides very accurate results for weakly correlated systems, it usually fails in the presence of static or strong correlation. This failure is generally attributed to the qualitative breakdown of the reference, and can accordingly be corrected by using a multideterminant reference, including higher-body cluster operators in the ansatz, or allowing symmetry breaking in the reference. None of these solutions are ideal; multireference coupled cluster is not black box, including higher-body cluster operators is computationally demanding, and allowing symmetry breaking leads to the loss of good quantum numbers. It has long been recognized that quasidegeneracies can instead be treated by modifying the coupled cluster ansatz. The recently introduced pair coupled cluster doubles (pCCD) approach is one such example which avoids catastrophic failures and accurately models strong correlations in a symmetry-adapted framework. Here, we generalize pCCD to a singlet-paired coupled cluster model (CCD0) intermediate between coupled cluster doubles and pCCD, yielding a method that possesses the invariances of the former and much of the stability of the latter. Moreover, CCD0 retains the full structure of coupled cluster theory, including a fermionic wave function, antisymmetric cluster amplitudes, and well-defined response equations and density matrices.

Range separated hybrids of pair coupled cluster doubles and density functionals.

Pair coupled cluster doubles (pCCD) is a size-consistent, size-extensive, low-cost simplification of CCD that has been shown to be able to describe static correlation without breaking symmetry. We combine pCCD with Kohn-Sham functionals of the density and the local pair density in order to incorporate dynamic correlation in pCCD while maintaining its low cost. Double counting is eliminated by splitting the (interelectron) Coulomb operator into complementary short- and long-range parts, and evaluating the two-body energy with pCCD in the long-range and with density functionals in the short-range. This simultaneously suppresses self-interaction in the Hartree-exchange term of the functionals. Generalizations including a fraction of wavefunction two-body energy in the short-range are also derived and studied. The improvement of our pCCD+DFT hybrids over pCCD is demonstrated in calculations on benchmarks where both types of correlation are important.

Pair extended coupled cluster doubles.

The accurate and efficient description of strongly correlated systems remains an important challenge for computational methods. Doubly occupied configuration interaction (DOCI), in which all electrons are paired and no correlations which break these pairs are permitted, can in many cases provide an accurate account of strong correlations, albeit at combinatorial computational cost. Recently, there has been significant interest in a method we refer to as pair coupled cluster doubles (pCCD), a variant of coupled cluster doubles in which the electrons are paired. This is simply because pCCD provides energies nearly identical to those of DOCI, but at mean-field computational cost (disregarding the cost of the two-electron integral transformation). Here, we introduce the more complete pair extended coupled cluster doubles (pECCD) approach which, like pCCD, has mean-field cost and reproduces DOCI energetically. We show that unlike pCCD, pECCD also reproduces the DOCI wave function with high accuracy. Moreover, pECCD yields sensible albeit inexact results even for attractive interactions where pCCD breaks down.

Synergy between pair coupled cluster doubles and pair density functional theory.

Pair coupled cluster doubles (pCCD) has been recently studied as a method capable of accounting for static correlation with low polynomial cost. We present three combinations of pCCD with Kohn-Sham functionals of the density and on-top pair density (the probability of finding two electrons on top of each other) to add dynamic correlation to pCCD without double counting. With a negligible increase in computational cost, these pCCD+DFT blends greatly improve upon pCCD in the description of typical problems where static and dynamic correlations are both important. We argue that-as a black-box method with low scaling, size-extensivity, size-consistency, and a simple quasidiagonal two-particle density matrix-pCCD is an excellent match for pair density functionals in this type of fusion of multireference wavefunctions with DFT.

Electron correlation in solids via density embedding theory.

Density matrix embedding theory [G. Knizia and G. K.-L. Chan, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 186404 (2012)] and density embedding theory [I. W. Bulik, G. E. Scuseria, and J. Dukelsky, Phys. Rev. B 89, 035140 (2014)] have recently been introduced for model lattice Hamiltonians and molecular systems. In the present work, the formalism is extended to the ab initio description of infinite systems. An appropriate definition of the impurity Hamiltonian for such systems is presented and demonstrated in cases of 1, 2, and 3 dimensions, using coupled cluster theory as the impurity solver. Additionally, we discuss the challenges related to disentanglement of fragment and bath states. The current approach yields results comparable to coupled cluster calculations of infinite systems even when using a single unit cell as the fragment. The theory is formulated in the basis of Wannier functions but it does not require separate localization of unoccupied bands. The embedding scheme presented here is a promising way of employing highly accurate electronic structure methods for extended systems at a fraction of their original computational cost.

Seniority-based coupled cluster theory.

Doubly occupied configuration interaction (DOCI) with optimized orbitals often accurately describes strong correlations while working in a Hilbert space much smaller than that needed for full configuration interaction. However, the scaling of such calculations remains combinatorial with system size. Pair coupled cluster doubles (pCCD) is very successful in reproducing DOCI energetically, but can do so with low polynomial scaling (N(3), disregarding the two-electron integral transformation from atomic to molecular orbitals). We show here several examples illustrating the success of pCCD in reproducing both the DOCI energy and wave function and show how this success frequently comes about. What DOCI and pCCD lack are an effective treatment of dynamic correlations, which we here add by including higher-seniority cluster amplitudes which are excluded from pCCD. This frozen pair coupled cluster approach is comparable in cost to traditional closed-shell coupled cluster methods with results that are competitive for weakly correlated systems and often superior for the description of strongly correlated systems.

Proper and improper zero energy modes in Hartree-Fock theory and their relevance for symmetry breaking and restoration.

We study the spectra of the molecular orbital Hessian (stability matrix) and random-phase approximation (RPA) Hamiltonian of broken-symmetry Hartree-Fock solutions, focusing on zero eigenvalue modes. After all negative eigenvalues are removed from the Hessian by following their eigenvectors downhill, one is left with only positive and zero eigenvalues. Zero modes correspond to orbital rotations with no restoring force. These rotations determine states in the Goldstone manifold, which originates from a spontaneously broken continuous symmetry in the wave function. Zero modes can be classified as improper or proper according to their different mathematical and physical properties. Improper modes arise from symmetry breaking and their restoration always lowers the energy. Proper modes, on the other hand, correspond to degeneracies of the wave function, and their symmetry restoration does not necessarily lower the energy. We discuss how the RPA Hamiltonian distinguishes between proper and improper modes by doubling the number of zero eigenvalues associated with the latter. Proper modes in the Hessian always appear in pairs which do not double in RPA. We present several pedagogical cases exemplifying the above statements. The relevance of these results for projected Hartree-Fock methods is also addressed.

Particle-particle and quasiparticle random phase approximations: connections to coupled cluster theory.

We establish a formal connection between the particle-particle (pp) random phase approximation (RPA) and the ladder channel of the coupled cluster doubles (CCD) equations. The relationship between RPA and CCD is best understood within a Bogoliubov quasiparticle (qp) RPA formalism. This work is a follow-up to our previous formal proof on the connection between particle-hole (ph) RPA and ring-CCD. Whereas RPA is a quasibosonic approximation, CC theory is a "correct bosonization" in the sense that the wavefunction and Hilbert space are exactly fermionic, yet the amplitude equations can be interpreted as adding different quasibosonic RPA channels together. Coupled cluster theory achieves this goal by interacting the ph (ring) and pp (ladder) diagrams via a third channel that we here call "crossed-ring" whose presence allows for full fermionic antisymmetry. Additionally, coupled cluster incorporates what we call "mosaic" terms which can be absorbed into defining a new effective one-body Hamiltonian. The inclusion of these mosaic terms seems to be quite important. The pp-RPA and qp-RPA equations are textbook material in nuclear structure physics but are largely unknown in quantum chemistry, where particle number fluctuations and Bogoliubov determinants are rarely used. We believe that the ideas and connections discussed in this paper may help design improved ways of incorporating RPA correlation into density functionals based on a CC perspective.

Performance of density functional theory in computing nonresonant vibrational (hyper)polarizabilities.

A set of exchange-correlation functionals, including BLYP, PBE0, B3LYP, BHandHLYP, CAM-B3LYP, LC-BLYP, and HSE, has been used to determine static and dynamic nonresonant (nuclear relaxation) vibrational (hyper)polarizabilities for a series of all-trans polymethineimine (PMI) oligomers containing up to eight monomer units. These functionals are assessed against reference values obtained using the Møller-Plesset second-order perturbation theory (MP2) and CCSD methods. For the smallest oligomer, CCSD(T) calculations confirm the choice of MP2 and CCSD as appropriate for assessing the density functionals. By and large, CAM-B3LYP is the most successful, because it is best for the nuclear relaxation contribution to the static linear polarizability, intensity-dependent refractive index second hyperpolarizability, static second hyperpolarizability, and is close to the best for the electro-optical Pockels effect first hyperpolarizability. However, none of the functionals perform satisfactorily for all the vibrational (hyper)polarizabilities studied. In fact, in the case of electric field-induced second harmonic generation all of them, as well as the Hartree-Fock approximation, yield the wrong sign. We have also found that the Pople 6-31+G(d) basis set is unreliable for computing nuclear relaxation (hyper)polarizabilities of PMI oligomers due to the spurious prediction of a nonplanar equilibrium geometry.

Semilocal and hybrid meta-generalized gradient approximations based on the understanding of the kinetic-energy-density dependence.

We present a global hybrid meta-generalized gradient approximation (meta-GGA) with three empirical parameters, as well as its underlying semilocal meta-GGA and a meta-GGA with only one empirical parameter. All of them are based on the new meta-GGA resulting from the understanding of kinetic-energy-density dependence [J. Sun, B. Xiao, and A. Ruzsinszky, J. Chem. Phys. 137, 051101 (2012)]. The obtained functionals show robust performances on the considered molecular systems for the properties of heats of formation, barrier heights, and noncovalent interactions. The pair-wise additive dispersion corrections to the functionals are also presented.

Time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy for the detection of cysteine and other thiol containing amino acids in complex strongly autofluorescent media.

A thiol probe based on an iridium complex with long-lived photoluminescence was synthesized, which can be used for the detection of thiols even in the presence of strong background fluorescence. This system provides an easy and fast methodology for detecting thiol containing amino acids, which has potential applications in clinical diagnostics.

Electronic and vibrational contributions to first hyperpolarizability of donor-acceptor-substituted azobenzene.

In this study we report on the electronic and vibrational (hyper)polarizabilities of donor-acceptor-substituted azobenzene. It is observed that both electronic and vibrational contributions to the electric dipole first hyperpolarizability of investigated photoactive molecule substantially depend on the conformation. The contributions to the nuclear relaxation first hyperpolarizability are found to be quite important in the case of two considered isomers (cis and trans). Although the double-harmonic term is found to be the largest in terms of magnitude, it is shown that the total value of the nuclear relaxation contribution to vibrational first hyperpolarizability is a result of subtle interplay of higher-order contributions. As a part of the study, we also assess the performance of long-range-corrected density functional theory in determining vibrational contributions to electric dipole (hyper)polarizabilities. In most cases, the applied long-range-corrected exchange-correlation potentials amend the drawbacks of their conventional counterparts.

Atypical calcium coordination number: Physicochemical study, cytotoxicity, DFT calculations and in silico pharmacokinetic characteristics of calcium caffeates.

Two complexes of calcium ions containing monodeprotonated caffeate ligands were synthesized and physicochemically (IR, FIR, NMR, thermal analysis) and theoretically (DFT and pharmacokinetical parameters) characterized. [Ca(C(9)H(7)O(4))(2)].2H(2)O 1a and [Ca(C(9)H(7)O(4))(2)].2H(2)O KNO(3)1b are compounds with unusual four coordinate calcium ion containing the ligand coordinated to the metal ion through two carboxylic groups arranged with tetrahedrally-like mode (CaO(4)). Two water molecules are outside the first coordination sphere bound non-equivalently to the ligand through a net of hydrogen bonding. The compounds were found to be cytotoxically inactive. Finally, in silico parameters predict the potential application of the compound as a supplement and/or drug.